As mentioned in the summary, I have a roughly completed draft here. However, I do not think it's up to site standards quite yet, specifically in the addendum and description.

I'm hoping for constructive critique as well as idea bouncing on where might things go better. The draft is fairly long, so I will attempt a shorthand of what I'm going for below:

SCP-XXXX is a collection of pictures frames that slowly warps a person's personality. Long term exposure to a single picture completely swaps the subject's personality for the object in the picture frame, but long term exposure to SCP-XXXX while activated seems to also have a negative effect.

More specifically, people who have SCP-XXXX around them for extended amounts of time with a photograph will begin to exhibit stress and paranoia, as well as behavioral changes. Something I'm trying to do more subtly in the addendum documents is show that being around any activated instances of SCP-XXXX for too long (it can be different instances, as well as different photographs) will result in a change in behavior as well. There's also a none too subtle dig at parents dismissing children's concerns about things as works of imagination, which is where this idea originates. I should probably scrape one of these two ideas so I can properly develop the other, but I'm rather attached to both.

Any feedback is appreciated. Please be brutal. I've always coasted by in writing classes, and I'd like to be subject to a proper critique. :)

Edit 2.0: I figured out my problem with tabbing. It's fixed so the proper piece for review is now front and center.

You're doing so many things right, but I gotta tell you straight away, it almost seems like a thing that makes you crazy. Are there mind-warping horrors in the Foundation universe? Yes. Are they interesting to read about? Not usually.

However, the teaser that it has to do with parents ignoring children inclines me to think that this has potential. A lot of potential.

Ideas: (this is where I'd take it, you make up your own mind) the frames only work with a specific photo or set of photos. If a group of people is exposed to a photo for too long, they begin acting out certain roles that match the subjects. Extra people just become bystanders/background characters. So a family photo makes a group of people act like a dysfunctional suburban family. A school photo makes people act out a teen drama. A unit picture makes people act out life as soldiers. However, it just affects their interaction with each other. Around others, they seem almost normal.
Y/N?

So I just read the draft. I liked it, but I'm not sure others will. One question: the clinicality was iffy, but it almost seemed like that was intentional because the primary author of the article was slowly losing his marbles. Am I right?

The original original idea is actually based off a lifelong paranoia of mine I've been able to get over more recently. Essentially, I had a lot of sports pictures in my room (you know, the group shots that get sold for Too Much Money to parents). They really creeped me out because out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the smiles turn into grimaces and when I was really young I thought they'd come out and either take my place or drag me into the picture, "eating" me. My parents always dismissed my concerns and when I was older I learned to keep quiet because my mother laughed at me for still being uneasy having pictures 'watch' me sleep.

I thought the eating factor was probably too cheesy, and some people in the chat mentioned Goosebumps had a story where the characters were dragged into pictures (though this was when they were photographed). I didn't want to look like I was trying to rip them off too much.

If I decide to follow through more strongly with the parents ignoring their children idea more closely, I do think I will focus more on the idea of only certain subject matter affect the subject. I tried to widen the idea, again, at the encouragement of the chat, though the more and more I think about it, the more the animals seem to lean towards that unwanted crazy factor.

I'm honestly not a big fan of whole group dynamics changing up but going unnoticed by the rest of the world. I like the idea of group exposure being something that happens, but for me personally, it'd work better if it was something that continued in the presence of others. So…maybe y? I'll look for further feedback and see if anyone else has interesting ideas before attempting the massive overhaul, if that's okay. I like collecting a pool of ideas.

One of my biggest draws to writing a SCP or two is that the tone is something I'm not used to. Recognizing that, I decided that yes, I wanted to try and have something that had a reason to sound less than professional. Dr. R was indeed being affected by the scip; their prolonged exposure and frustration at the lack of data they were getting created a turning point until they snapped. The Foundation quickly buried evidence of their worse crimes and it's likely they won't pass the psych evaul to go back to work.

It was my attempt at showing that maybe the parents aren't totally at fault - they would be undergoing prolonged exposure as well due to the scip being in their home - but the details with Dr. R might be best for a tale instead addendum, so I can better focus on the primary effects. All of that said, I think I like the idea that prolonged, indirect exposure doesn't completely change one's personality but heightens certain subconscious tendencies. In Dr. R's case, that would be their desire to fully research a scip no matter the moral or ethical dilemmas.

Okay, wow, I still got rambly. I'm sorry about that. You've give me quite a bit to digest conceptually. And I will definitely look for help in keeping the tone clinical prior to publishing this scip.

Clinical tone is probably one of the hardest parts of learning to write for this site. An example I've given before and will likely give again is as follows:Clinical:

Three D-Class personnel must sanitize SCP-173's containment unit biweekly in order to reduce the buildup of organic residue.

Not Clinical:

We send three D-Class into 173's box twice a week to clean up the blood and shit that it makes.

Avoid subjective words and phrases, and avoid most pronouns, and it'll help.

Also, for future reference, check out Expert Witnesses and Non-Professional Helpers. Like, this isn't necessarily immediately helpful to this idea, but for some reason it's kinda hard to find those pages when they're great resources.

I apologize for the bumping. I just wanted to keep this thread current of any (major) edits I have made.

After having a few people give me real time advice in chat, I tried to work on the following:

grammar and syntax issues (I was given suggestions on some of the syntax issues. very helpful)

clarification on certain points of scip

removal of much of the LOLFoundation in test logs

"slimming down" of description - removed much of the process, which is not needed in a general thing and could be placed in later documents if desired

addition of interview log for an instance of the scip

massive editing of journals, now made informal and clarified to be as such

For the time being, I haven't adjusted the actual nature of the scip. I will probably go back to chat in a couple of days for further feedback, and this time I will remember to ask if they think it's boring or not. Outside of my learning how to write clinically (this is an editing thing I won't be posting on the thread as I continue to work on it), I think the biggest challenge is to make sure that the main description is interesting enough to be worth going into the addendum.

I am going to highlight an awkward sentence that I've been struggling with. My friends have been unable to help me fix it, so maybe you all can help?

Hi, sorry. I ended up asking someone with a pretty good track record to look it over (after you went to bed) and it's undergoing a lot of reshaping. I was going to work on it yesterday but decided just a day away would help a lot as well. Thanks so much though Eskobar. :)

E: Day or two. I'm probably going to work on it more tomorrow and work on some rl stuff today.